Still better than Apollo "waste management system" - NASA accronym and PC, really...
That's something "For all mankind" got either wrong, or did not explained.
How would dear Molly Cobb pee in orbit ? Soyuz had a toilet, MOL had a toilet, Skylab had a toilet, but Apollo had none. Men and women are equal when poo-poo-ing but not when peeing.
Mike Mullane in his own unique way (trashy, but hilarious) explains how hard it was, for NASA, to solve that idiotic issue: how do you pee in zero-G without a penis to put in a condom with a hose at the end ?
Training - Mullane vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut experience - from telling a female technician which urine-collection condom size is a fit; to walking along a Florida beach in a last, tearful goodbye with a spouse; to a wild, intoxicating, terrifying ride into space; to hearing...
publicism.info
And then, how do you test that on Earth solid-ground 1-G ? Using a vomit comet ? won't last long... (30 seconds)... and the unfortunate volunteer would have to be gentle enough to want to pee at the right time, please...
And then was the case of Discovery maidden flight late August 1984 with Judy Resnik (she was the one who said "Maidden ? there are no maiddens on this flight." to the delight of her flight mates.)
At some point way too early in the mission the WMS urine dump resulted in icicles that could break the shuttle heatshield (no kidding: the urine froze at the worst possible place and could have pulled a STS-27 or worse, a STS-107 on Discovery).
So the crew was told "you can poo-poo, we store it in the tank as usual. But do not urinate anymore because we can no longer dump and the tank will be full very soon. So please go for the Apollo bags".
The crew agree... and then, in true gentlemen fashion, basically offered Resnik to keep peeing in the toilet (and tank)- since well,
you know...
And she
refused and
used the Apollo bags, do you know why ?
Because, being "second woman in space" after (ultra-feminist) Sally Ride, she feared some filthy press or media would learn about it - and say
"she filled the pee tank all by herself, and then once the tank full the mission had to be interrupted. So a woman in space Resnik - caused trouble to a mission".
NO WAY - so she bravely used the bags.
No comment was done by anybody, except by herself in a brief statement
"Apollo bags do not work for women. At all !"
...
There is also the (less serious) case of that astronaut prankster who picked a brown and small sausage out of a food package, and then let if float out of the toilet... the prank worked, his crew mates flying away in panic and disgust.
Only for the prankster to look at them, smile, and eat the... sausage.
spacenews.com
